Merry Christmas!!!

Greetings from Uganda.

On Tuesday this week, our youngest baby Lilly, turned 1, and Rille (our second youngest) is turning 5 on Christmas.

We were able to go for a short family vacation at Musana camps, a Christian campsite on lake Victoria with the kids. We were joined by Pastor Freddie and Sandra and their baby Irma. It was a relaxing time and a joy to be with family.

Our school year ended in November, and all kids that have extended family, were sent to them to spend time with family. Some church members have also taken some kids to their homes for Christmas break. We have only 22 people at the village, including the staff helping out.

We are using this time to do remodeling at the school. We are laying tiles in classrooms, painting, clearing the compound and laying pavers.

According to the police crime report of 2021, 17,000 sex abuse cases were reported and of these, 14,000 of them were aggravated defilement cases. (Childen under 13 years sexually abused by an adult.) 1 out of 3 girls have been sexually abused in Uganda, according to the US embassy in Kampala.

This year, we have been able to rescue 23 girls who were victims. Recently, we launched a community action team. We are working in partnership with the local district, police, state prosecutors and other stake holders to ensure that children are safe and that these offenders are taken away from society. We are also raising awareness about the whole issue of sexual abuse.

We launched the campaign last week and we hosted many of the local district officials and local press.

Your prayers will be appreciated as we continue to reach these girls.

Meet our newest kids at Mercy.

Namakula (English name not yet known) is 7 years old. She is extremely malnourished to the point where she cannot stand, she only squats. Maria, who is 3 years, can stand.

We rescued them this week; the mother is a mentally sick person who has been living in a shack.

The mother would take food from the oldest and feed the youngest. They were referred by the district social worker who was informed by the community.

They don’t have any known relatives, but we will begin to search for them as we rehabilitate them. Your prayers are appreciated.

Like the kids above, we have 46 kids that are not yet sponsored but are already in our care.

We spend $40 to care for a non-residential child and $100 for a residential child or child with special needs.

You can make a one time gift or signup to become a child sponsor. You can also make a gift towards the ongoing construction and renovations. Your gift goes a long way.

https://childrentolove.givingfuel.com/sponsor-a-child

Merry Christmas!!

June Update

Greetings!!

I would like to start by thanking you for your continued prayers and support.

Vena had her third chemo round on Monday. She is feeling better than when she had her first and second round. Pray it is not hard on her. We are still praying for flights to open and we can all join her.

Zoe has graduated from Kindergarten. We continued to teach her at home and we are doing the same to all our kids at Mercy village. We have teachers that stayed and were quarantined with us. This has also helped keep our kids busy and occupied.

The kids had a break from our homeschool, they went and spent some time at my parents’ and my sister’s home. They had not seen them for the past 3 months.

We were able to get most of the boys sponsored, and they are thriving at the village. We were able to not just furnish one house but two, and were also able to buy them clothes. It was a joy as each received 5 shirts and 5 shorts. Thank you for the support.

Since we cannot meet in church, we turned the Sunday school rooms to food stores and have transformed the main sanctuary as a food distribution place. We have reached out to over 1500 people from our community with food and face masks, and we would like to continue reaching out families with the goal of helping at least 5,000 more.

We have reached out to close to 50 rural pastors, boda riders and teachers with care packages; these groups have been affected the most by the pandemic. It has been a joy to see Muslims, and many non-believers come to church for the first time to receive food, and it has given us the opportunity to pray for them.

For the food that we distribute, we buy it from local farmers and food distributors, some who are members of our church. By purchasing from them, in a small way, we are helping these local businesses survive during this pandemic.

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It is currently illegal to walk without a face mask in public; you can be fined or put in Jail for that. At this time, tailors don’t have Jobs, so we have provided jobs to widows and teenage girls in our program and they are making cloth face masks.

Daisy, a mother to our sponsored kid, Angel, is a single mom whose husband abandoned her with the kids in Nansana slums. She later became homeless with her kids, and that is when Mercy started sponsoring her oldest daughter, Angel, who is now in Grade 7. During this Covid season, she could not afford to feed her family, but through the masks program, she is now making enough money to care for her family, pay rent, and even bought her own manual sewing machine.

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Vicky, a teenager who dropped out of school due to her parents not being able to afford her education, has joined our vocational skills training program and has learned how to sew. She has always had them of owing her own electric sewing machine, and because of this program, she has saved over half of the money. In two months, she has the goal and hope of having enough saved up for it.

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Now that public and private transport has been allowed, we have started searching for families of our kids that were rescued from the streets, please pray that we are able to find some of their families.

Your prayers are highly appreciated.

Thank you very much!

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Happy New Year!

Happy New year!!

The last few weeks have been the busiest weeks I have ever experienced. Our school is set to start at the beginning of February, and our HR was tasked to hire staff. The first set of interviews did not go well as we had many applicants, but few met our standards, and I began to panic as time was running out. Thank God, we were able to do massive advertisement again, and we had another set of interviews which helped us get the teachers we need.

It has been stressful and sometimes I felt lonely, but I got encouraged each time I prayed and let God take charge.

My parents and sisters came to my home, and we celebrated Christmas together. We shared the day with our staff that was working such as our medical staff, Baby Home Mothers, and Security Guards, and we also shared it with our patients that were admitted to the Medical Center.

I took a few days and vacationed with my family after Christmas and that was energizing. In times when I am done, I just imagine the thousands of kids that will walk through this school, know Christ and be nurtured to become Godly leaders that will impact our country, and I am so humbled that God has called me to be a part of it.

A few weeks ago, nothing was up at our school, but I am thankful to God that we have built six classrooms, and they are now on the roofing stage. It is not just about the buildings, each day over 20 men come and work on our site, and I see 20 families that are cared for because of this building project. We have bought bricks from local villagers, and they are thankful to earn money so that they can feed and educate their families; our local businesses have also been boosted because of the cement and supplies we continue buying from them. Thank you for your prayers and support. Our goal is that the school will be done in 3 weeks pray for me.

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Our annual camp starts today; we invited all the kids that we sponsor to come to the Village for 3 nights. We will be sharing with them from Romans 12. We are blessed to host a team from Chicago that will be helping us in the camp, and will also be doing a medical outreach as the team has two nurses and a doctor.

We continue welcoming in new babies at the village, and each day we receive referrals for babies that need to be rescued. This breaks my heart knowing what these kids go through, but I am thankful we have a safe place where they can be. Our last set of kids that we rescued are twins, Kato and Wasswa. They are currently at the national referral hospital to receive treatment for malnourishment.

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Please Pray:

  • Pray for Kato and Wasswa that they will be fine soon.
  • Pray for good weather that our builders are not delayed.
  • Pray for me and my fellow staff that God will give us strength in this time.
  • Pray for the Camp that our kids will be transformed by the power of the gospel.

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The Rugumba Family on Family Vacation!